Cartoon fans we are but about a month or so away from the release of the newest He-Man animated series which is being called simply just Masters Of The Universe: Revelation and as such I thought that now was the right time to make a tie in review. However since i've already covered the He-Man and She-Ra animated and the live action Masters Of The Universe movie and it's far to early to be talking about the He-Man and She-Ra christmas special that only left me with one opinion and so join me as I review the the very first episode of the 1983 He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe TV series with the episode in question being called simply just "Diamond Ray Of Disappearance" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is Skeletor and his evil minions try to attack Castle Grayskull and Skeletor also makes a bunch of He-Mans allies disappear using a magic diamond and so it's up to He-Man , Teela and Orko to save the day before it's far to freaking late. In terms of what I thought about the actual plot of this episode in all honesty the actual plot of this episode was at best OK which for a show as cheesy as this is perhaps the best thing that I can say about the plot of episode since nobody goes into He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe expecting a great plot and so it would foolish to expect this episode or even any episode of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe to have a great or even an above average plot to any of there episodes this episode included.
Starring in this episode is John Erwin as Prince Adam / He-Man and Beast Man and Alan Oppenheimer as Skeletor , Man-At-Arms , Cringer and Mer-Man. Also starring in this very / particular episode is Linda Gary as Teela , The Sorceress , Evil-Lyn and Queen Marlena and Erik Gunden as Orko , King Randor and Tri-Klops. For some strange reason only four voice actors from this show appear in this episode and all of them are the shows leading actors and so I have to wonder why weren't more actors brought onto to this show to help fill out the shows cast.
In terms of what I personally thought about the acting that's featured / presented to us in this very / particular episode in all honesty the acting that's featured / presented to us in this episode is honestly really good. I honestly had no idea what to expect from this episode acting wise since i've in all honesty never seen an episode of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and so i was left pleasantly surprised by how good the acting in this particular episode was.
Now I have no idea who did the animation either for this episode or for the show as a whole but knowing that Filmation is not only involved with making this show but that they were also an animation company I have to assume that Filmation did the animation for only this episode but for the show as a whole. As for what I thought about the animation that was featured / presented to us in this particular episode in all honesty I thought that the animation that was featured / presented to us in this particular episode was really good yes it's not groundbreaking and yes it's not perfect by any means but for an early eighties animated TV show the animation that was featured / presented to us in this episode was as good as it perhaps could have been.
This show is the episode was the one thing that She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power wasn't and that's fun. Since for some strange reason even tho She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power has pretty much the exact same premise as both She-Ra Princess Of Power and He-Man Masters Of The Universe it just wasn't a fun show to watch where as this episode in particular knew what it was and it knew to just have fun with it's premise and because of that this episode is very fun to watch.
Most modern cartoons just aren't that interested in being fun and alot of the time the ones that are interested in being fun get bashed by cartoon and animation fans for little to no actual reason. Which to me is baffling since you can have a good show that's light on plot and light on character but still be a good and fun show to watch not every show or movie needs to have a dark and complex storyline and be filled with a dark and complex characters sometimes just being fun is good enough and that is the case with not only this episode but also from this entire show.
One of the things that I didn't like about this episode is that all of the characters come across as very two dimensional. Like for example all of the heroes are always willing to do what's right but we don't really know why that's the case nor do we find why all of the villains in this episode are evil and so I would have liked it if this episode took the time to tell us why these characters are the way they are even if it's done some clumsily written piece of dialog since it still would have been better then nothing which is what we get here we get nothing.
This episode has a grand total running time of twenty minuets and forty four seconds which I personally felt was the right amount of time for this particular episode. Since there's not much there in terms of actual plot for this episode and so stretching this episode out even to twenty two minuets would have meant that we would have had a lot of scenes are just filler and would serve no overall purpose to the plot of this particular episode but that's just what I think anyways and that's just in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinion anyways.
Now then boys and girls since this show is an action show after all and that means that there is actual action in this episode and that means that I have to talk about the actual action that's scene / featured / presented to us in the / this actual episode itself and well if i'm being honest the action that's featured / presented to us in this episode is kind of a let down for me personally. Since I was expecting to see some over the top campy and cheesy and corny action sequences in this episode and I didn't get that instead what I got was something that felt very watered down which makes sense given that this is a kids show meant to sell toys to little kids but at the same time the makers of this show could have put a bit more effort into creating some fun action sequences to go into this particular episode.
Overall this was a decent first episode and it's one that i'm glad to have finally have seen before the new He-Man animated series comes out this July. Now then since i've talked about both of the good things that are featured / presented to us in this very in this very review and as well as both of the bad things that are featured / presented to us in this very episode in this very review and since I did find quite a few / quite alot of things wrong in this episode that means that this particular episode gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.
As for where I got all of the images that I used in this very review well then boys and girls and ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I used in his very review from the official He-Man And She-Ra fandom wiki page and the official She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power fandom wiki page. With my personal preferred website to use to get images this episode being the official He-Man And She-Ra fandom wiki page just simply due to the fact that pretty much all of the images that are featured / presented to us on the official the official He-Man And She-Ra fandom wiki page are all fairly high quality and as well as being fairly high definition.
